


Solemn Thoughts of a Separated Twin

by ArmedWithAStaringFly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Family Feels, Gen, Twin mythology, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 08:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10185215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArmedWithAStaringFly/pseuds/ArmedWithAStaringFly
Summary: Cultures, across many worlds and galaxies, had legends and stories about twins. Whether they were bad luck. Whether they were one soul in two bodies. Whether they were destined to live on opposite sides of the Force. Leia had always listened with interest, but she never knew why. Until the fateful day that Luke confirmed why she had that odd feeling about him.And in recent years, she'd been dwelling on those legends a lot more.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This one requires a bit of context. At the time I originally wrote this, I had just finished the book The Thirteenth Tale. It is a gothic novel heavily involving the superstitions around twins. I also really enjoy the soundtrack to the musical Blood Brothers, which involves a pair of twin boys separated and rejoined later in life to disastrous consequences. In that story, a character makes up a superstition that claims separated-at-birth twins are doomed to misfortune should they ever learn the truth. I thought it was an interesting concept when applied to Luke and Leia. 
> 
> I did some research on how twins are viewed across the world, and it tends to be extremely varied; though they are always sort of seen as strange, often wonderful, and perhaps a little creepy. I reference some of these legends in the fic.

Almost every culture across the galaxy had legends involving twins, at least those for species in which more than one child per birth were rare. 

Leia noticed this from a young age, long before she’d ever imagined that she _was_ one. Perhaps this is why the old wives tales passed around her fellow senators’ servants had enticed her so; she had subconsciously wanted to learn more about herself, and her missing match. 

Few cultures feared twins. But so many viewed them as mysterious, almost mystic. Tied to each other in ways that no one else could understand. Bringing luck, or misfortune. Loving each other more deeply than any love could match, or bitter rivals. Sometimes, they were worshiped. 

Those that believed in the Force argued over what would come of Force sensitive twins. Some said they’d be more powerful with their powers intertwined. Beacons of blinding light, as powerful as four Jedi when joined. Other said they were more likely, because of the needed balance of the universe, to fall on opposite sides–one light, one dark, forever battling to keep each other in check.

And woe be to the twins who are untimely separated. 

Leia always lent an ear to these legends and stories. But rarely did she heed them. After all, she was not a twin. 

That is, until Luke looked her in the eye and confirmed the thoughts that had been whispering in her mind since she’d met him, the connection she’d so clearly felt but couldn’t quite identify. He was her brother. They had shared their mother’s womb. They were twins, what so many considered two halves of a whole, rejoined at last. 

Of course, they were fraternal. Rarely did the superstitions make such a distinction, but they didn’t look alike, nor did they act alike. They were simply siblings who happened to be born at the same time. But Leia still couldn’t help but notice that once their relation was confirmed, there was _something_ with Luke that she didn’t have with other people. Some may have pointed it to their shared Force sensitivity and their sibling relationship linking their minds even closer. That was the explanation to which Leia owed their ability to sense each other’s emotions, sometimes vague thoughts. Certainly not some sort of inherent, psychic connection that all twins had. She could feel when he was uneasy or troubled, he could sense her fear of their father’s darkness stirring in her angry soul. That was why he had simply sighed and nodded when she told him no, she would not be training as a Jedi. Her skills were with a blaster and a military command. He was disappointed, but understood. He always did. Despite their differences, she never saw them battling it out on opposite sides of the Force, even if she had trained with him. It may be a shame, though, that they’ll never know if their refined powers would ignite when joined as one. 

( _“Sometimes you two creep me out,”_ Han told her once, mere months after the Battle of Endor. 

_“What?”_

_“I mean, sometimes I see you two standing outside, just looking at the sky and being totally quiet but…looking at your faces I can tell you’re communicating. You’ll laugh a bit or suddenly look really down, even though no one said anything. It’s like you’re having an entire conversation the rest of us can’t hear. I’m not sure you two are even conscious of it.”_

Sometimes when she thought of that memory, she wondered if that’s what she and Luke would have been like had they been allowed to grow up together. Would they have been unnerving everyone that way, walking side by side down hallways or sitting together as they played and having secret, silent conferences through the Force that no one else could pay privy to?

She’d heard of twins forming their own secret language, understood only by the pair. It was only that theirs would not even have to be spoken.)

Some said that twins were one soul separated, practically amputated when forced apart. That, of course, was nonsense when it came to her and Luke. They were certainly not one person. He was made of gentle light, with yellow hair, pale eyes, and a calm disposition. She was made of fire, with dark features that contrasted his and a harsh violence in her heart to match. After all, they’d been separated for nineteen years and she never felt like she’d been cut in half (strangely lonely at times perhaps, especially on long summer days when she could almost feel a presence with her that wasn’t there). But now, there was a strange completeness she felt when he was around. It probably also totally natural, given that he was a person who knew her thoughts and emotions and understood her more deeply than anyone ever could, even Han. A perfect confidant and companion. Who wouldn’t miss such a person? 

(Leia thought, from time to time, about something her father once told her as a teenager. _“You had this imaginary friend when you were very young. You probably don’t remember now. But you’d talk with him sometimes, when you were alone. We couldn’t get much out of you in terms of description, only that he wore white like you. At first we figured you just concocted a male version of yourself, until you said he had blue eyes. Bluer than we’d ever seen. Your mother used to joke that we may have had a ghost in our midst.”_ It was probably just another trick of the Force _._

She asked Luke if he’d had an imaginary friend as a child. Maybe, just maybe, a little brown eyed, sharp-tongued girl. He was quiet, and then told her that if he had, Uncle Owen feared his Force abilities too much to have told him.)

There was one more legend she knew, odd in its extreme specificity. Odd in how specifically it applied to them.

_Should twins, secretly parted, ever come to learn of their true relation, they will both immediately die._

Well that was just silly, and so easily disproven. Neither of them dropped dead when Luke told her he was her brother. Leia wondered how such a superstition could even be formed. 

But as she lay alone in the nights, still reeling in the cold, dagger-like death of her husband and the slow realization that her son may never be saved, those legends came back to haunt her. Those intrusive, irrational thoughts prodded at her already wounded soul, opening the cut even more. All she could do was try to fight them.

 _Some said twins were a bad omen. Did Anakin Skywalker not fall after his secret, forbidden wife became pregnant? You should never have been born. The galaxy would not have gone to darkness._  Emperor Palpatine would have found another way. Their birth allowed the galaxy to be saved. 

 _Others said twins had to be raised together, dressed alike, fed alike, married alike, or their fates would spell misfortune. You were raised in luxury, him in squalor. The life you loved caused your losses._ Nonsense. That was mere superstition and besides, how many twins are truly raised that way to the letter?

 _You say you don’t feel severed without him, but have you not felt ripped in half since he left you with hardly a word?_ There are many reasons for that. So many reasons.

But that last one…the one about them dying should the truth be found out. 

They did not die. But the part of her mind weighed down in grief, weak and vulnerable to illogical thoughts, sometimes clouded with memories of Luke’s devastation six years ago, and her managing to lose her world once again at the same time. Everything the Universe granted them, it took away. And that part of her mind thought perhaps, the Universe knew it needed them alive, so it did not kill them when Luke learned of their twinhood. But all debts must be paid in one way or another.  

They did not die, at least for the time being. But in return for their lives, they lost everything else. 


End file.
